"Man, I used to really love that song until it got played to death!" How many times have you heard somebody say that? It's a legitimate gripe, especially if you work in place where the radio is played day and night. You inevitably suffer hearing the same goddamn songs hundreds of times a day. It's even worse around the holidays. Really, it's a wonder you don't read about more work-related massacres around this time at the hands of poor souls who just couldn't take it anymore.

But the larger context of this quandary, the complaint that a once-beloved song was ruined by the radio, speaks to a larger dynamic of how we absorb pop music: It becomes our identity. Whenever a song or a band goes from relative obscurity to household juggernaut, there will inevitably be a group of people who will lament the act's popularity.